Sound advice

yaggy

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This is about getting the best sound quality out of a multi-arcade machine.

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I have a POW:prisoners of War cabinet converted to Pigskin
that is running a PC/Mame setup.

The video is squared away - pixel perfect resolutions, no-tear scrolling,
frame rate synced, etc. But it's rocking a single factory 4"/8ohm speaker
and fed from a radio shack 35w 2-channel amplifier the size of a cable
modem with the stereo switch flipped to mono.

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Games typically put out sounds that range from 150Hz to 15,000Hz.

But to handle this, they have an on-board amplifier that puts out
about 8 watts of what I guess is peak power (as opposed to RMS
or Programme) wired with 20-24ga wired to "dollar store" mid-range
drivers, often 10w and of questionable frequency response.

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Pinball machines like the Williams system 11 series all handle the
hardware aspect of sound with two top speakers in the backbox
and one lower cabinet speaker. On the left is a decent mid-range
driver, on the right a tweeter. Firing towards the floor is an 8" woofer.

Even though its mono sound, it's rich, dynamic and satisfying.

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So the question is, without doing modifications to the cabinet
(it has two 5" spaces for speakers), would it be best to just
maybe stick two decent mid-range speakers in there and enjoy
stereo sound (which maybe 30-35% of the game selection offers,
the rest are all mono) or go with a woofer/tweeter combo and
have rich monaural sound?

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Since arcade games utilize a lot of mid-range sound, it might be
advisable to get a "full-range woofer" even a "midbass" but there
really isn't much call for the need to produce frequencies below 150Hz.

To go a step further, and this is merely food for thought since it
entails more cash getting spent, should these speakers have a
higher (100w) handling ability and be driven by something beefier
than that 35w amp? How noticeable would the clarify jump be?
Thanks.
 
The best quality sound I have ever heard come out of an arcade game has been from my MAME cab. I have a Logitech Z-2300 2.1 (200w) system with the two satellites replaced by Pioneer car speakers from Best Buy. The speakers were the round 5" 3-way type, 35 watts (model TS A1372R). The system is crisp, clear, full, rich, and warm and the bass is never overpowering. And it is loud - not that it needs to be, but sometimes it's fun to fire up Zero Wing and jack the volume.

I didn't even try matching up impedances and wattages or anything, but it works great and has never given me problems.
 
I use a Cyber Acoustics 2.1 system just a couple years older than this one: http://www.cyberacoustics.com/retail/Speakers/CA-3550 I got for $15 on clearance at Office Max. The stereo speakers were just OK sounding but I bought a pair of auto Audiovox 5 1/2 inch 2-way about 6 years before that and took the CA speakers apart and run the wires to the Audiovox's and it sounded soooo much better. Stuck the subwoofer into the bottom back and the bass is pretty intense for such a cheap system. It actually rivals my parents jukebox.
 
FOLLOW-UP:

I went with this...

20w 2-channel Amplifier ($21) - - - 5,000Hz 8Ohm High-Pass Crossover ($6)
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4" 8Ohm Tweeter ($5) - - - - - - - 5.25" 8Ohm Woofer ($5)
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The high-pass crossover keeps the tweeter from being fed frequencies below 5KHz which it can't reproduce anyway and will just bring down quality. Williams pinballs don't bother doing this, but I think they should. Also, to get true mono without distortion, you don't just wrap the +SPK connections together and call it a night -- or use an "adapter" which does the same thing -- you first need to solder in a 10K resistor to each line.

I cannot believe the range this setup puts out and with more power for clarity than the original PCBs or even most PC speaker combos. I've played with subwoofers but most games don't pump out much below 150Hz, so there really isn't much need. The woofer handles things like explosions and music while the tweeter puts out crisp gunfire and other sound effects. Not bad for about $40 total, all things considered. I highly recommend www.parts-express.com too.
 
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